What's In A Name?
by ThePrincessOfTheCoathangers
Summary: Hermione muses on her many nicknames and the relationships that produced them. Definately only a one-shot.


First year Transfiguration teaching assistant, Hermione Granger, sighed as she tried to keep track of the first year Gryffindors she was responsible for. It would be much easier to do if everyone didn't have so many nicknames. She could never tell, from one minute to the next who anyone was talking to. Once she had herded the students back to their common room, she settled into a comfortable chair near the staff room fire and began to ponder the many odd nicknames she'd accumulated over the years.

Of course, I was really Grawp who'd started it, but once she'd hexed Ron's Quidditch uniform so that he couldn't pick it up, he'd stopped calling her "Hermy" at least. He'd started calling her "Sis" after one particularly momentous argument where she screamed at him to stop treating her like a little sister. This nickname had spread throughout the Weasley clan, and had developed into a frightening number of variations. Ron was too scared to call her anything other than plain "Sis" after the shudder "Hermy" incident. Ginny consistently referred to her as her "Big Sis" while the twins preferred "Our other ickle sissy-poo." Various other things were thrown out from time to time, but really Hermione didn't mind them too much, except the twins version of course.

Harry, being as much an honorary Weasley as Hermione had taken to calling her "Sis" as well. But, being Harry, he couldn't avoid the fact that his life inevitably got more and more complicated daily. When he, and the rest of the Order of the Phoenix, discovered that his mother had been just barely pregnant when she died, Harry had desperately grasped for Hermione as an "unofficial" sister to fill the void he now felt. When he was in a particularly depressed mood, he had taken to calling "Maya Rose" or just "Maya" which was the he'd put on the tombstone the Order had erected for his unborn sister. At first Hermione had been a bit disturbed by the morbid name, but as time went on and Harry snapped out the depression a bit, it became a representation of she and Harry's special bond.

Professor McGonagall, despite the fact that Hermione was now her friend and teaching assistant and despite the fact that she had gained a different last name, continued to refer to her in private as "Miss Granger." She seemed to take a fierce in the fact that a Muggleborn, Gryffindor, female student had conquered in so many areas. Hermione smiled as she reflected on how closely she and her mentor had come to identify with each other during her last two years as a student. Minerva had treated all of Hermione's many accomplishments – Head Girl, a key role in the defeat of Voldemort, best N.E.W.T. scores since Dumbledore, university in only two years, and the successful integration of herself into one of the old families – as if they had been her own.

Malfoy, now a tentative friend, had taken to calling her "_the Muggleborn_" with exaggerated emphasis. All of the newspaper stories about the wedding had referred to, "the Muggleborn, Hermione Granger, close friend of the Boy-Who-Lived/Man-Who-Conquered." Malfoy's twist on it was also a mockery of the "good old days" when he used to refer to her as a mudblood. He and Snape had also taken to referring to her as "_La Signora_" ironically, just to mock her title. Even when they were being friendly and affectionate in their own twisted ways, Malfoy and Snape were really bastards actually.

Her husband, as was his nature, had the most complicated, obscure and secret nickname he could come up with. As far as she knew, they were the only two who understood it. Ron and Harry always got such confused looks when he pulled it out, and that only made it all the more enjoyable. It had been their final Arithmancy project, seventh year, and it was their third night in a row staying up late in the library. She'd had to mock him for the coffee he'd snuck in, if only to cover the discomfort she felt at sitting so close to him when she'd liked him for well over a year. But she'd been so tired and the coffee had smelled so good that only a few minutes later she'd tried to steal some. He had looked her straight in the eye and called her "_leonessa coraggiosa_." Then he'd kissed. They'd gotten kicked out of the library for the ruckus she'd made scolding him for the kiss, but it had been worth it. Within a day, they'd managed to start dating and "_leonessa coraggiosa_" had been shortened first to just "_leonessa_," but later when he'd deemed that unworthy, to Cora. Blaise, ridiculously stubborn, even if that wasn't a famous Italian trait had even insisted on calling her that during the vows of their wedding. After two years of rushing back and forth between uni, Hogwarts and him, she'd barely had time to plan her own wedding and had let him do whatever he liked. That may have been a mistake, as she'd found herself with a new "official" middle name the day before her wedding.

Hermione was brought out of her reflection by the sight of her husband entering the staff room, apparently intent on sweeping her off somewhere private. As she was carried out of the room she thought to herself, "It's a good thing I am a "_leonessa coraggiosa_" since my "_amore segreto_" seems bent on constantly surprising me.


End file.
